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- [00:00]
Narrator/Announcer
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- [00:16]
Ana Maria Sayer
A quick note before the show.
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Narrator/Announcer
This podcast contains explicit language.
- [00:20]
Ana Maria Sayer
You know what's the worst, Felix? We think we're so hilarious and probably no one else does.
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Felix Contreras
No one else does.
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Ana Maria Sayer
No one else does.
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Felix Contreras
I can guarantee you nobody laughs at my jokes or stories the way you do. Okay, where are we from? NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras.
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Ana Maria Sayer
And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Let the chisme begin. Felix, you better have some chisme for me.
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Felix Contreras
Yeah, the chisme. The chisme. There's this giant meteor.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Oh, God. Anything but this, Felix. Yes.
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Felix Contreras
Oh, my God. I'm just. I'm obsessed with it. It's the size of Manhattan. It's hurtling through our solar system. It came from outside of our solar system, which means it came from deep space. It's like billions, a quadrillion years old.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay. Is it coming towards Earth or what's happening?
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Felix Contreras
It's not coming towards Earth. We don't need to worry about it. I'm just fascinated. It's not going to hit us. It's not going to cause any problem. God knows who sent it. I'm curious. The aliens, all that to say. That's what I'm thinking about. But I'm also thinking about new music, which is what we're going to do this week.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay. I now remember what my first pick was, and it is a big deal because I've been waiting for 25 million years to play this album.
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Felix Contreras
Let's hear it.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Milo Jota. This kid is 19 years old. He's from Argentina. He's been maybe one of the biggest artists on the rise in Argentina. I've been following him for the past few years as kind of just like a big name, you know what I mean? Like a big name with an interesting sound. He does mostly a rap style adjacent type of thing. Rap, hip hop, but like, with a little bit more of an acoustic sense. Already sells out stadiums in Argentina. So he's one of those that I'm like, okay, I'm aware. But I've never really brought him on the show because he doesn't quite, you know, fit our style. Felix, let's just say, until this album. So before I get to the actual album, I'm going to play you a little sample of what he typically sounds like. This is his track, Olympo. Okay, got it.
- [03:03]
Felix Contreras
Yes.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Example Vlogged. So interesting. Like, that's why I've been kind of really paying attention to him is because he's not just straight ahead like doing a pop, rap, hip hop thing. Like, there is like a really interesting quality to what he does. Okay. So a couple weeks ago, he comes out with this album, La Vida Era Mas Corta. And Felix, it is stunning. Like, really stunning, unique. He played with all these traditional instruments from across Argentina. He collaborated with people like Silvio Rodriguez, Mercedes Sosa. I mean, like legends, legends, legends. Along with some of the big names, the younger names in Argentina, like Trueno and Nikki Nicole, but like small indy on the rise. Remember that girl I made you go see in Spain, Paula Prieto?
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Felix Contreras
Oh, yeah, yeah.
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Ana Maria Sayer
With her too. So, like kind of a really big blend of collaborators. But more importantly, his family, they're from this place in Argentina. It's called Santiago del Estero. It's one of the last kind of really still rich, culturally rich, maintaining a lot of their culture, indigenous communities in Argentina. He's from that community. So he used a lot of the traditional folk instrumentation. I'm going to stop talking about it now and let you hear a little bit of it. So this track that I picked is called Bajo la Pierre.
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Felix Contreras
Bro.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I know. Oh, my God, there's so much. Yeah, right. Like, there's so much. This is the opening track, Felix. This is like a huge album. It's two sides. He plays with tango, bando, neon, ancestral chants. But more importantly, like, to me, this opening track, what I loved about it, it's called Bajo la Piel. Literally, tattoos under the skin is how he describes it. And he describes it as the marks of years that he was not allowed to be a part of. Basically memories he never got to live because of the way that his family and his ancestry was scarred by all the years of dictatorship in Argentina is basically the concept of this record. I mean, he's 19 years old. Wow. Felix.
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Felix Contreras
Oh my God.
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Ana Maria Sayer
And he's already. He's one of those that's just so connected with the generations. His mom was like an activist and then the community, and so he's very in tune, in touch with all these things. And he's. He didn't have to do this, right? Like, he's already on the rise. He's already selling out stadiums. He could just be the end, right? But he's like, no, no, no, I'm going to take the time, I'm going to Find these collaborators. I'm going to play you the Mercedes Sosa track. As we know, Mercedes passed in 2009, but he used recordings of her voice and it's just beautiful. The track is called.
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Felix Contreras
It's almost like Mercedes is blessing his work. You know, of course he had to get permission, I'm sure from the estate and all that. And I'm sure there was a lot of legal processes, but just her presence, her voice, when it comes in so strong, like tears.
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Ana Maria Sayer
And it's not just that, right? I mean, he got Silvio Rodriguez to sing on this album. Silvio Rodriguez didn't change a single line, Felix. Like it's. It just makes me. It gives me this feeling, Felix, where it's like this, what we're able to. There's so much incredible content of people creating art like this. Like young artists creating art like this. It's such a unique moment in Latin America and for us to be able to talk about this, it's like we get to have a whole show that is basically this because of how many people are creating inspired art like this. It's incredible. That was a couple songs from Milo Jota's new album, La Vida era Mascorta.
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Felix Contreras
Okay. You know, a couple weeks ago we talked about where we get our ideas from, you know, where we find the music and personal recommendations and of course publicists sending me emails and stuff like that. I do use those. For those of you out there listening, go ahead and send them to me. I found this record, the single that is by these self described boy band from Guatemala called Los Skippers and a guy who calls himself Fabuloso, who's from Peru, moved to Guatemala, studied photography, started making music. Now he lives in Mexico City and it's just really cool. Their take on bossa Nova again like re examining something from the past, but in their own way. Check it out. This is called Cite Gusta.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I love Bossa Nova.
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Felix Contreras
Barely. So do they. I went to seek out these guys individually, Fabuloso and Lo Skippers. And honestly, like, either one of their music is not anything I would listen to. It's very, very pop, very well produced, but it's not something. If you heard it, it's like, Felix, you would never listen to that. And I wouldn't.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I would listen to it.
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Felix Contreras
You would listen to it. I know you would. I know you would. But it was something about this combination that I was like, oh well, let me. I like the song. But then let out who they were. But more importantly, I wanted to do it because they're from Guatemala, and we don't have enough music from that part of the world. And it was a chance to play something very creative, something that's happening right now. And, you know, hats off to them.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Well, and it doesn't sound like Guatemala to me.
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Felix Contreras
No, it sounds like Brazil, man.
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Ana Maria Sayer
It sounds like Spain, honestly. Which is weird. I know. But this is what a lot of these Spanish producers are doing. Yes. A lot of them play with Bosa, like, exactly in the way that they did. And that's what's really cool. And it's Mexico City is what it really is. Because that's. That's the canal. That's like the. That's the meeting point.
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Felix Contreras
Yeah.
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Ana Maria Sayer
100%. Like, this is where Mabe Frati lives too, right?
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Felix Contreras
That is true.
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Ana Maria Sayer
You know, when you think about who are like, the big names from Guatemala right now. So it's like that's, I think, where they find that in that meeting point. And there are some producers in Mexico City doing what the Spanish producers are doing.
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Narrator/Announcer
But.
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Ana Maria Sayer
But I'd have to listen to it a couple more times to see if I can hear Guatemala. But it sounds. I immediately thought of Spain. Isn't that funny?
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Felix Contreras
The name of the track is Cite Gusta. It's Fabuloso with Los Keepers. So there. I listen to cool stuff, too.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I know, Felix, you're trying to come for my brand. Stay in your lane. Where's the jazz?
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Felix Contreras
Funny you should mention that.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I gotta start bringing. Oh, no.
- [12:47]
Felix Contreras
Carry on.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay. It's time. Mon La Ferte. I've already brought on to. I think if I remember correctly, I brought on two different singles from this album, but the album came out and it's gorgeous. So I think I have to bring it on again. Mon La Ferte just released her album Femme Fatale. And the thing about Mon, I think she's brilliant. I've been so amazed how she's been able to continue to. To reinvent herself. She is one of those artists. She came up at the same time as a lot of other Mexican. Well, she's not Mexican, but adopted Mexican vocalist. She's Tulane, as we know. And many of them have not been able to continually reinvent themselves the way that she has. I mean, she turned from just being like, oh, this beautiful singer into someone who's like a concept artist who comes out with an album and does something really distinct, really specific with a very, you know, an angle, a message. Last album was incredible. Completely different from this record. So I'm gonna play you a track, even though you've heard some from the record already, but you probably don't remember, so.
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Felix Contreras
Of course I did.
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Ana Maria Sayer
For the first time ever. Here's some songs from Femme Fatal. This song is called Las Flores que de rasta en la Mesa Samurai.
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Felix Contreras
I think in the future, when. As we do now, when we think about, like, great voices of the past in. In any genre, jazz, pop, whatever. In the future, when we think about the great voices of this era, Mon Lafecta's name is going to come up 100% Felix.
- [15:34]
Ana Maria Sayer
And really what she does on. She has this really interesting track that I want you to hear where she really gets a little bit into her sensuality. It's part of this whole kind of empowered, female overarching theme that she's doing on this record. So this song in particular is called 1:30.
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Felix Contreras
Okay, Anna, stay in your lane, man. That's straight ahead. Jazz track. Wow.
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Ana Maria Sayer
So you didn't even know I was coming for you too? I could Spidey sense. Sense that you were gonna take my thing. So I was like, I must totally, totally is. And that's the thing is she's tickled with jazz before. Like, last record was a lot more electronic with some big sweeping strings. And she kind of like did a little too, too, too with some jazz. But then here it's interesting to me because the concept is not one genre, it's not one sound. But it's like all of these kind of different eras and different styles that kind of work around the same feeling, you know what I mean? It's not tied to one era or one specific, like, oh, this is a jazz thing or a bossa thing or a bolero thing. It's just like all of these kind of sexually empowered, very like. She's just like testing, like, play a little bit. It's really interesting to me. It's beautiful. It's beautiful.
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Felix Contreras
You know, that particular track, it reminds me of. I guess it was like the late 50s when these. The beat poetry movement here in the United States came out of San Francisco. And mixing the poetry like that with jazz, that's, you know, that was a. As soon as I heard that acoustic bass, like to start that track. And then you hear the draz on the cymbal and the snare and then the piano, like these sparse chords. This sounds like the stuff that came out of the 50s with the beat poetry, but. Except I think that Spanish is more suitable. It's more adaptable. It fits in better with that jazz ride symbol. I think Spanish matches the syntax of jazz better than it did in English, I think.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Well, because the way you write music in Spanish, there's a flow to it. You can fit more in there, you can fit more flow, you can fit more verbiage, you can fit more flower English. Everything has to be very on time in a way that's really challenging. And so to hear those two things mixed. Plus there are some tracks in here that sound kind of soul, almost like reminiscent to me of like a Chicano soul kind of thing. And so it's almost like to me, every era, it's like she's putting on different costumes throughout the album is kind of how I would describe it. And it's like every era that women kind of had a moment to, like test the water on something is kind of how it feels like that's what's unifying these sounds. And then it's all in Spanish, which is a whole other thing.
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Felix Contreras
I'm so there for it. I love this.
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Ana Maria Sayer
That was a few tracks from Molleferte's new album, Femme Fatale.
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Felix Contreras
Okay, Anna, we need to take a break because I'm going to rearrange the order of the songs that I brought because I got something that will match up. Let's take a break and then we'll play it when I come back.
- [19:23]
Narrator/Announcer
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- [19:36]
Robin Hilton
Support for this podcast and the following message come from Betterment. Start investing in a better future. Whether it's saving for today or building wealth for tomorrow, Betterment helps people and small businesses put their money to work by automating to make saving simpler, optimizing to make investing smarter, and building innovative technology backed by financial experts. So be invested in yourself. Be invested in your business. Be invested in Better with betterment@betterment.com Investing involves risk performance not guaranteed.
- [20:10]
Narrator/Announcer
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- [20:39]
Robin Hilton
It's Robin Hilton from All Songs Considered.
- [20:41]
NPR Promo Voice
Finding a new favorite song or artist is such a deep, specific joy. And it's all the more special to find that joy on public media where people, not algorithms, invite you in. NPR is your personal portal to music discovery. Keep the door open with a donation this Public Radio music day. Visit donate.NPR.org and thank you.
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Ana Maria Sayer
And we're back from break. Felix.
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Felix Contreras
Okay, so I'm going to move my songs around because of the jazz nature of that last track. I want to play a track from a pianist named Chano Dominguez, who is from Cadiz in Spain, and a guitarist who calls himself a Maginario, who is from Cleveland, Ohio. I'm a big fan of Channel Dominguez, but I did not expect this combination and theme. And that's why I like his music so much, because they're so full of surprises, so creative. This is track called March of the Sigurias, and the album's called the Blues Around Us. Check this out.
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Guest Artist or Music Sample Voice
Sam.
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Ana Maria Sayer
You know what, Felix? This is one of those tracks that reminds me that jazz is such a cheater genre.
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Felix Contreras
What do you mean?
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Ana Maria Sayer
Jazz is everything. Jazz isn't a genre. Jazz is just the world in music.
- [22:49]
Felix Contreras
Well, you know, jazz also has a ton of people who are like we call the jazz police. If you don't play it a certain way, then you're way off track. But, you know, I think they're holding music back. This is an example of.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Tell them, Felix. You tell the jazz police what's up.
- [23:08]
Felix Contreras
This is an example of Charlo Dominguez. And, you know, we talk about Spain a lot and the way that a lot of these new artists are using and innovating with flamenco. Chano Dominguez was like, he's part of this movement that has been mixing jazz and flamenco, going back to Paco de Lucia, his first record that he did with jazz in the 60s. There was an album in the 90s called Dies de Paco that Chano Dominguez was part of. There was a point on one of his records where he played a Thelonious Monk tune. And it was pretty obvious that Monk was not, in fact, from North Carolina. He was from southern Spain. Okay. Just in terms of the way he wrote his music and his. The way he. His syncopation, because the Monk music went perfectly with mixing it with jazz. All that to say is that John Dominguez has been part of that. He made this great record in 2006 with the original Motomami Martino, the Spanish vocalist. So he's got this long trajectory. I mean, been a fan of his For a long time. But this record, this particular track stands out because it does lean into the flamenco thing. But the rest of the record, there's hints of flamenco, but more or less straight ahead stuff. Blues, lots of blues. A lot of straight ahead, a lot of laid back stuff. It's a great way for people, I think, for people who have been listening to the show and exploring all these different aspects of Spain and the music being produced in Spain right now, to go back and dig into his catalog and see what other musicians have been doing for a long time.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Flamenco, to me is also one of those genres that is, if deconstructed, so many things.
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Felix Contreras
Oh my God.
- [24:49]
Ana Maria Sayer
So it plays well with a lot of different genres too. Not to foreshadow some things that are common.
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Felix Contreras
Stop.
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Ana Maria Sayer
We're really circling around Spain this week.
- [25:02]
Felix Contreras
And since that is a jazz track, I have to be the jazz DJ and say that. That also included Obed Calver on drums and the great Carlos Henriquez from New York on bass. They're both from the Wynton Marcellus's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Carlos Enriquez's New York and very, very talented. Done a lot of different things. But that's the rhythm section in that record. The album's called the Blues Around Us. The artist is Chano Dominguez and Imaginario, also known as Ethan Margolis.
- [25:33]
Ana Maria Sayer
Okay. Natipeluso released an EP recently. It's a salsa EP and I'm going to play a little bit of it and I. I'm actually very curious to hear what you think about it, Felix. So I'm just going to go straight into it. The first track I want to play is called Angel.
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Felix Contreras
I'm still blown away by how these younger musicians are just leaning into very old school salsa.
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Ana Maria Sayer
So the whole EP is literally pretty much straight ahead salsa. I mean, I chose this track cuz it has kind of that funky intro and there's a few little effects throughout that are. That are contemporary. But generally speaking, like the EP is actually just a salsa ep. She's done salsa stuff before. In her last record there was a good amount of salsa playing with salsa. And that's kind of something. She has said that that's the direction she wants to go in. That's the music that really fills her up. She's Argentine, raised in Spain. Like salsa isn't really in her lineage, but it's something that she's really committed to. She thinks it's really fun to play with. Whatever. It's not what she Got famous for by any means, like her original sound. I don't know if you remember this, Felix. It's very. It's almost like hip hop bordering very electronic, right? And it's interesting to me because in some respects, you know, we talk about all these artists who are using influences from sounds like salsa. Or, you know, we could talk about Bad Bunny where there was a salsa track on his album, right. Or a number of artists. Paul Alejandro tried to do that too. Cheese literally just doing straight ahead salsa. And I actually don't know how I feel about it, Felix. Like, in some sense, I think she has this really cinematic, beautiful big voice that can kind of rise to the occasion of a salsa track. And there are also some moments for me in it where I'm like, I don't know, falta algo.
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Felix Contreras
For me, I think that salsa is having to come back definitely in a big way. And you know, and it did go through this period where there was a period called salsa romantica that people that also school Salcedos just did not like at all. I just did a panel with the members of Eddie Palmieri's band for a jazz festival here and the subject of salsa romantica came up. And it was, you know, it was not talked about in a good way because as opposed to, you know, the way that Eddie Palmieri and the people that came before that did it. So, you know, if there's any knock toward this music that they're making now, it's because it sounds more like. Like salsa romantica. It's a little. I don't know, what's the word? It's, it's. It's cleaned up a little bit. It's not as funky. There's not a lot of rough edges to it.
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Ana Maria Sayer
It feels less crashing.
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Felix Contreras
And the mix, the way it's recorded, you know, you can hear all the left hand on the conga, the 16th notes and everything. And the way they play, there's something, I don't know, there's something about to old school salsa. And even some of the current bands forget about Cuba because that's a whole different thing. But some of the current bands that are playing it and the sound is funkier a little bit. You know, this is kind of cleaned up.
- [29:50]
Ana Maria Sayer
We always have to remember that early salsa was punk. You know, like early salsa, especially in Puerto Rico, was not respected and it wasn't clean and it was built in the streets, you know. So, yeah, you clean it up and you lose some of that for sure.
- [30:08]
Felix Contreras
The early south and the seventies was just Basically, you know, a reproduction of the Afro Caribbean, but Afro Cuban dance music that was just, you know, modernized a little bit. But it did, you're right, it did have that rough edge to it, and there was a punky attitude toward it, especially like you said in Puerto Rico.
- [30:25]
Ana Maria Sayer
That was angel from Natipeluso's new ep.
- [30:28]
Felix Contreras
Mal Portada Whiplash Time. I'm gonna dip into my ongoing passion and obsession with Latinos who are performing in the Americana and country space. This is an artist by the name of Andres Miguel Cervantes. He has an album called Songs for the Seance. This track is called Dreams of Jacumba. That's all I'm gonna say right now. I want you to hear the track.
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Guest Artist or Music Sample Voice
Emeralds in the night sky above these old graves these old dreams of a comeback like memories fade Footprints through the desert Come to rest in the shade and we're driving to Tecate Past the road signs that say Goodbye, love, goodbye, goodbye.
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Felix Contreras
You know, you gotta have a voice to sing country music like that, right? And. And he sort of reminds me of Raul Malo, the lead vocalist of the Mavericks.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I was gonna say that.
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Felix Contreras
Yeah. He's got the same timbre, same deep, resonant voice. You know, it's something that I discovered. You have to have a voice that can tell stories to perform that music, because if. If it's not there, then it's just words floating in the air. You got to have the feeling behind it. And he's from San Francisco and San Diego. He's not from Texas. He's not from the Red dirt movement in Oklahoma. He's. He's. He's from California. He's from where we are. Right. But for whatever reason, this is how he has chosen or the expression has chosen him, right. To express himself this way. I remember hearing. It was a couple years ago, I heard a song called the Crossing that he did, and it was a story. And it's almost the same style of his father coming from Mexico to the United States. He's using that whole genre to tell his own reality. It's, you know, again, just like the salsa conversation. We could go on and on and on.
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Guest Artist or Music Sample Voice
Emeralds in the night Sky.
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Felix Contreras
The album's called Songs for the Seance. The artist is Andres Miguel Cervantes. I'm a fan. You have been listening to All Latino from NPR Music. Our audio editor is Noah Caldwell.
- [33:50]
Ana Maria Sayer
The executive producer of NPR Music is Saraya Mohamed. And the executive director of NPR Music is Sonali Mehta.
- [33:56]
Felix Contreras
I'm Felix Contreras, and I'm Ana Maria Sayer thank you for listening.
- [34:22]
Robin Hilton
Crime looks different than it used to. A loophole in a crypto wallet could yield a billion dollars. A deep fake of your voice could be used to steal money from your bank.
- [34:31]
Ana Maria Sayer
We have PhDs in our team, and.
- [34:33]
Felix Contreras
They can't tell the difference themselves.
- [34:34]
Ana Maria Sayer
AI has gotten that good.
- [34:36]
Robin Hilton
The Indicator from Planet Money is digging into the evolving business of crime and listen in the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
- [34:46]
NPR Promo Voice
We are now in spooky season, and on this week's episode of Books We've Loved, we discuss all things Interview with The Vampire with NPR's Barry Hardiman. So turn on the lights, grab some garlic, and listen to Books we've loved in NPR's Book of the Day podcast feed, on the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's more spooky than a scary, bloody, sometimes maybe even a little sexy story? This week on NPR's Book of the Day, we're talking horror. We've got interviews with longtime masters Anne Rice, Stephen King, and a couple new voices, too. Listen to NPR's Book of the Day podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.